International higher education scholarships: a pathway for Palestinians’ academic recovery

Abstract

Scholarships offer one significant pathway for higher education recovery and development in Global South contexts. Although some research exists to illustrate this significance, the case of Palestine remains virtually unresearched. This article is a first contribution to bridging this gap. It draws on qualitative data collected through interviews with and pre-existing documents from 32 Palestinian scholarship alumni and alumnae. Four experiential themes emerged through critical realist thematic analysis of this data. Two of these themes are reported in this article. First, the participants reflected a range of negative and positive motivations for pursuing their funded graduate education abroad: escaping limited opportunities in Palestine, actualizing potential, and serving Palestine. Second, they described experiencing a mix of exciting and challenging (re)adaptations while appreciating new approaches to the content and practice of their academic learning. Together with the identified participants’ demographic and academic backgrounds, these thematic findings extend global empirical evidence of the contribution of international scholarships to higher education access, recovery, and development. They also avail a useful and timely frame of reference to inform future research and practice of higher education scholarships for Palestinians.